Roadmap

From Open Source Ecology
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Technical Areas of Endeavor

Meta: the audience for this writing is to expose a detailed technical rollout plan for 2016-2026, which is the time allotted to Full technical development of an autonomous infrastructure construction set known as the GVCS, and implemented in the form of OSE's first full Campus. This is OSE's current plan, and is constantly up for review under agile development methodology. This writing assumes technical expertise in specific areas of endeavor. For a popular overview of this work, please see the GVCS TED Talk, GVCS in 2 Minutes, the MIT Innovations Journal article, the New Yorker Article, and a recent interview at the Permaculture Voices Podcast.

Tractor Construction Set

Tractor Construction Set - a set of multipurpose, scalable, Design for Manufacturing modules that can be used to build any heavy machine at 2-10 times lower cost compared to industry standards. The power level of this set spans from fractional horsepower to 168 horsepower machines and above.

The machines of interest span any mechanical heavy machine, such as a backhoe, tractor, bulldozer, cement mixer, sawmill, well-drilling rig, agricultural combine, seeder, baler, mower, Hammermill, Pelletizer, etc.

The component modules being developed to create any mechanical device include:

  • Power Cube - a multipurpose, modular power source, also overlapping with the gasifier which allows the mechanical infrastructure to be powered by locally-derived, Pelletized biomass
  • Universal Rotor - a multipurpose drive rotor that can be used as a drive wheel, a drive track, a chain drive, a sawmill, a Pelletizer, a Hammermill, cement mixer, or any rotor-based machine
  • Pivot joint - a modular, bolt-together pivot structure that may be used as a pivot with heavy shafting, such as with 3" shaft. It is used wherever an articulated joint is required, such as on a backhoe, Ironworker Machine, or articulated steering of a tractor.
  • Articulated cylinder module
  • Clamp module -

Open Source Fab Lab

Immediate term goals are to implement a rapid prototyping infrastructure primarily for the Tractor Construction Set and other construction sets of the GVCS. The open source Fab Lab is an open source industrial upgrade of Neil Gerschenfeld's Fab lab concept, spanning a broader range of more powerful tools focusing on localized industrial production capacity.

Currently the open source CNC Torch Table is the most important tool. Near-term goals include capacity to forge and roll steel into tubing, to induction melt and alloy steel followed by hot rolling to generate virgin steel from scrap, and to precision machine steel - culminating in the manufacture of ball bearings.

A full range of supporting material feedstocks, such as cutting, heating, and heating gases is also required, and our approach to these is likewise via the use of ubiquitous resources. Charcoal generated from pelletized biomass will be used for generating fuel gas for space heating, running internal combustion engines, and oxy-fuel cutting, as well as to provide an important industrial feedstock (carbon). Water will be used to generate cutting oxygen and fuel (hydrogen) for oxy-hydrogen cutting.

Effectively, the goal is to enable the creation of advanced civilization using an integrated workshop facility on the scale of 400 square meters (civilization which uses a level of technology up to precision machined metal objects, such as engines) in any location where scrap metal is available as a feedstock.

Project Management

Retrieved from "https://wiki.opensourceecology.org/index.php?title=Roadmap&oldid=130868"